TimR

It's really mainly someone's attitude to risk, which depends on the outcome of any potential failure, along with experience. Once you start paying lots of paid gigs and have one or two failures it becomes a no brainer to chuck in a cheap second hand £50 bass. I played hundreds of gigs over 20 years and never had a failure. Never took a spare, didn't even consider it. Then one night lost a machinehead. Playing a 3 string bass all night that could have been solved in seconds. Had another one go 10 years later but had a spare bass. No impact. I've since upgraded all machineheads instead of just swapping with OEM. 2 manufacturer failures (that turned out to be common on that manufacturer) in 40 years of playing. That's pretty good odds and most people would take a bet on that never happening to them.

Well that's completely different. Thought it was a rehearsal as well. Band meeting...

We are continually told one of the most important aspects of being a pro musician is you have to be able to get along with musicians. Word gets around and the difficult or snide types don't get offered work.

I think passive aggressive is agreeing with something and then not doing it. This is more like standard working within a team where different members have different abilities and different sensitivities. Walking out everytime there is a problem will get you called out as a child, certainly by me. I've only once called an early end to a practice when it's got tense between a singer and guitarist and has been obvious to everyone (apart from the 2), nothing productive was going to achieved.

Cheers. I'm of the firm belief that if you know what you're doing with bass drum EQ you can get away without using Subs. Certainly for crowds up to 200 people.

Looking at buying a pair of TS312 for general use. How are they without the sub?

This is where it is important to have competent band mates who are able to to comp while you 'faff'.

I can't be doing with it. It's childish. Should be happening in a creative environment as it stifles creativity if people are being told they're doing something wrong or being criticised. There are much better ways of handling musical issues than blaming one individual for being wrong, especially when it's clear that everyone else isn't completely on their A game.

That kind of behaviour will eventually wear you down and things will come to a head. Usually a lack of confidence or redirecting their own incompetence so that the rest of the band don't hear their bad singing. I had the same with a drummer who would glare at me, even during a gig, it becomes very limiting as you stop taking any risks with improvisation where an 'unexpected' note would be met with the glare. Needs to be handled carefully, or not, depending on what you want the outcome to be. Ultimately that kind of behaviour isn't productive in an open band. People should be able to smile when a wrong note creeps in without worrying about it being analysed to death. That takes all the fun out.

Backup bass stays off stage in its case. Backup is the operative word.

Plot twist... ...she joins BassChat.

She probably saw what happened to the Beatles when Yoko wanted to sing BV.

Alternatively, agree to let her play a few tunes in the first set. Pop to the bar and have a pint while she plays said songs. Then leave the venue for the evening.

I guess the Alarm Bells might be telling you to run. What if another bass player from another band asked if they could step in and play with your band for a few songs at every gig. It seems odd that we wouldn't be comfortable with other musicians playing music with us, it's supposed to be something we traditionally do. Not sure where the idea that some player are somehow better than others comes from, once everyone is a competent standard anything more is just being flash. 😉 I guess the real question is if she is only 'sort of' playing keys, should she even be doing that and does that mean she will only 'sort of' play her bass? Linda McCartney could sort of sing and play keys, she was pretty useful on tambourine though.

Suggest you'd like to play auxiliary percussion. Tambourine, cowbells, xylophone, cabasa, maracas, claves, congas, triangle, that thing that sounds like a wobbly bike...

Thank f,?! it wasn't that awful Fairytale song that everyone seemed to think should have been. Sam Ryder has written a fantastic Christmas anthem that sounds exactly the same as any other Christmas anthem. So there is new music coming through.

It's behind you.

I had a Trace Elliot amp that would do strange things after an hour. Used to turn it off during the break and let it cool down until I got the top off and found a dry joint and fixed it. Many years later the wisdom of the Internet highlights it as a common fault.

The old analogue gear before cnc, automation and quality control would all have sounded slightly different. Different components from different batches with different tolerances. Add to that speakers need to bed in, it's no surprise that combos, amps and cabs sound different. I guess basses you've owned for a while will have various wear points that only you (or the previous owner) will have put on them. Pickups wound slightly differently, pots with capacitors slightly different, woods from different trees. Especially when just changing strings makes a huge difference. I guess looking for new gear we can have a sound in our head that we are never going to get, I've always got something close and just learned to enjoy that new sound.

It's a really difficult position she's put you in. Declining graciously without throwing your toys out of the pram is an acquired skill. Luckily when I was in a band and the singer said he could play bass and decided to show me how to play something that I 'was playing wrong', it became very apparent, very quickly, that he couldn't play bass. 😆

At gigs? Why? Maybe audition first and let someone neutral decide if she makes the grade - ie not you or the drummer. 😆 But yeah, agree with earlier posters, if she's playing bass on those tunes, you play keys on them.

I'd have been waiting a long time then. Must have read Bassassin's post.

I'm watching gear4music for when it gets re-listed. I'll have it. 👍😎

It's all about expectation. If you're expecting an immaculate instrument then it's disappointing not to receive one. The only worry I'd have is resale value, would the marks be acceptable wear and tear if I wanted to sell it after a few months because its not exactly what I wanted? Buying it online you're buying blind and untried. I had a ding in the neck of my bass from new, I didn't notice it while playing it in the shop. It was quite distracting when playing. But took the edges off with some very fine sandpaper and it was OK.

Seems there's a lot of people on this site who don't understand satire. Many of them take me at face value. Which is ironic really. It keeps me amused anyway.